To Do List...

- sign up for yoga classes
- organise papers into some semblance of order
- fix comments on blog
- fold the washing
- write dissertation
- purchase more bookshelves
- defrag hard drives

In Dreams

Do you ever have those moments where you think things are okay in your mind, and you are just fine with the way they are and think that maybe if one had more time one would sit down and really think things out but its really not urgent or pressing or whatever?
Then one night you will be just chilling out about stuff and things and not worried at all about anything in particular, and then you go to bed and have a dream in which things happen and people appear and there are events and sequences and interactions and then you wake up in the morning and it all just makes sense? All this stuff that you thought might take some serious figuring out eventually just turns out to be so simple and you are kicking yourself for not realising it earlier, even though its not even the time for it now, let alone earlier and may only be the half promise half possible time for it more-than-one years down the track from now, but at now at least you know and somehow that makes it all a bit better.

Yeah, me too.

I've had my fun and now its time to send my conscience overseas

I am sensing a pattern here.
A couple of days before I go home, I have weird moods and am indescribably tired.

About half an hour ago I was in the shower and nearly burst into tears (and no I'm not PMSing, that was my first thought) and I don't really cry that much. Then I found myself singing.
(I'm not so much a crier, more a furniture thrower and glass smasher)

This afternoon I came home and landed face down on my bed and was a hair's breadth away from abandoning the idea of dinner and work and just climbing into my bed and starting again tomorrow.

And then earlier still a couple of things went really right, and I had one of those moments where you believe that there may yet be a day in the foreseeable future where you *aren't* focusing on just getting through this one day so you can get through the next.
In those moments you realise the volume of things that make it better and that perhaps the universe possesses slightly *more* joy than a sucking chest wound, and you get a glimpse of a future where its all ok and you realise that this too shall pass.

And of course for the previous several weeks I have been my usual grouchy unsympathetic impatient self, civil only to tyratae, members of the Smith Family and about 1 in 10 of my students.

Perhaps its the imminent reprieve, because one can never underestimate the sheer exhaustion that comes from being a stranger in a strange land on one's own.
It doesn't really matter what it is, because its nearly over.
I don't understand how people can do this permanently.

Thank the gods for $7.99 bottles of wine, aye?

Putting the South in SXSW

The lineup for SXSW is out, and while I remain secure in my decision to attend Bonnaroo instead, I am impressed at the Kiwi content of the former.

So, if you happen to be at SXSW, go see the following

Liam Finn
Katchafire
Die! Die! Die!
Gasoline Cowboy
Rodney Fisher
Wing
The Mint Chicks
Hollie Smith
The Ruby Suns

...and see how we rock out South Pacific styles.

So Us Is This

This afternoon I went to visit a friend in the hospital. She began her PhD the same time that I did, but is much further ahead than I am.

Four days ago she underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction for breast cancer, and I believe she has chemo lined up in the near future, and I was so impressed at what good spirits she was in. I was trying to imagine what I would be like in that situation, and I couldn't even comprehend it.
She was sitting up, and yes she looked a little tired, but she was telling stories, and making people laugh, and taking an extra half a lap around the rooms on her walk to build up strength.
I always want to punch people who say that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but from what I know about this woman and the things she has been through, perhaps its true in some cases?

One thing I forgot to tell her is that on the way there, my all-knowing iPod played some very appropriate music, the most pertinent being just as I came around the corner and could see the hospital: "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush.

I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left

The iPod knows.....

Horatio Caine is my Ginger Nemesis

So, how about this whole 2008 nonsense, aye?

The sum total of things I have achieved since this semester can be counted on the fingers of one hand, provided that hand belongs to a soldier who found himself in possession of a faulty hand-grenade that detonated 2 and a half seconds after he removed the pin, thus blowing the poor bastard's hand to smithereens, leaving him with stumps in place of his fingers and a six digit settlement from the grenade manufacturer.

Holland Chase has achieved something though. Apparently the Organised Seamstresses of America are planning a party.

And miles to go before I sleep

Blogging from the city of angels!!!
OK, the airport at the city of angels....

I'm in the Koru Lounge at LAX, having thoroughly enjoyed the shower (half an hour, oh yeah!), the food (cheese, salads, breads, cheese, crackers, fruit, cheese, cold cuts, cheese and cheese), the drinks (L&P baby!!!) and am sitting here pretending to write my history paper.
Its nice hanging out in here with the beautiful people.
I, of course, am sitting here in a black hoodie and trainers and am getting all sorts of "what is she doing in here" looks from my fellow travellers, but fuck 'em.

There is a cute Englishman on the phone, its cozy and warm, and earlier to day I could even see the Hollywood sign from the window. This is pretty special, I think I was onto my fourth LA trip before I saw it because of the godawful pollution here.

And I am on my way home to lick my wounds after the twelve car pile-up of the last nine months but before then I have to finish this fricking paper.

The sunset over the Pacific is really something else.

I find a map and draw a straight line

I have had another friend invitation on facebook, and am unsure of the protocol. I have met this person once, I think, but she just happens to be engaged to the boy who broke my heart 7 years ago. I therefore have very little inclination to want to be nice to her, despite the fact that I have moved on and want everybody to be happy.

Am I too petty? Should I just suck it up? I like to think that I reserve the 'friend' status for people I actually know and like (well, most of the time....)

I talked to a friend about it, and he said I should be her friend, but I think I am just too vindictive and mean. (They're not faults if you know about them, you see....)
I think I want everybody to be happy in love as long as I am happy in love.

Le sigh......

At least I have this to look forward to:


Bring the geekery!

I close my eyes and the room spins. This tiredness is of the variety that makes me think I will never be untired. Its in my bones, I am worn down to the marrow.
But that is only because today is a grey Sunday and school starts tomorrow and that means that the giant sucking chest wound of a summer is over and that makes me think about it all.
I'm also fucked off because fuckhead ambushed me at the BBQ yesterday and was all pathetic and sad and it was the first time I had seen him since he broke my heart and it all came flooding back and now I am having trouble breathing again. My first words to him were "What part of 'I don't want to talk to you' did you not understand?" then I gave myself a little mental high five.
I was going to send him a big email telling him (again) to fuck off, but then Matt pointed out that I should just leave it, because he's not worth the energy.

But I have more blessings than I can count, and I can count very high, and some of them were out in force today when I spent the day with Maggie and we walked with Holly and I came home to my lovely house and pottered about and tried to make sense of the chaos that is my room. There are things in piles now, and other things in the rubbish and recycling bins, and things on shelves and in cupboards where they should be and that makes my mind more organised because if there is order in my external life then there is far more chance of me making sense of the category five hurricane that is my brain. And now is a good time to start making sense of it all because I have to be in class tomorrow and pretend that I know what I am on about.

Haha good luck with that!!!

Stuff You Should Be Listening To

Interpol's new album is called Our Love To Admire and its fucking awesome, you all need to go and buy it now or be forever known as a knobrash with questionable taste in music.

It has been decreed.

Yet again, a picture is worth a thousand words.....


At least one of my faithful readers knows who I mean.

Thou shalt not wish your girlfriend was a freak like me

If I really cared enough, I would update my links. There are blogs there I no longer read, there are some that aren't even active any more, and there are many and wonderous things I could link to, and that I could make you all read. Because I have that kind of power.

I know its only May, but to me it kind of feels like the time for some retrospection. Yeah, I'm fairly sure its an actual word.
Perhaps because its the end of the semester, and I'm kind of feeling like I'm evaluating things, which is what one does at the end of something. And by "one" I of course mean "me". Or "I". Whatever.

It's been a thing, it really has, these past few months, and if I had to choose one word to describe it, that word would be "isolation". I was isolated from my family while they buried one of our own, and to rub salt in the wound, the one person I thought I could count on for comfort proved that I was nowhere on his list of priorities.
In hindsight however, I should have seen that coming a good month or so before I actually did. The shoes were a dead giveaway, yet again proving me right that you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. Take it from me: if the shoes are dorky, the relationship doesn't stand a chance.

And now I find myself isolated again, but this time for much happier reasons.
Right now I have no more to say on that here, lest I hex it or say too much or speak out of turn. Soon though, I hope.

Here is an interesting question: what words do your friends use to describe you?
By way of experimentation I got a few interesting ones out of Cardinal. Its a fun game.